The War on Labor
In recent months, organized labor has scored a major victory against one of the largest corporations in the world by unionizing the Amazon workplace, resulting in the first Amazon Labor Union. At the same time, employees at Starbucks locations across the United States have begun organizing to secure better hours, better pay, and better working conditions. However, these movements and others like them have historically encountered heavy opposition from state and corporate interests. This article will examine the history of anti-labor corporate practices in the U.S. and how these attitudes, policies, and histories affect the relationship between labor and corporations today.
High-profile tension between organized labor and corporate leaders in the U.S. dates back to the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Post-Civil War, the U.S. saw a surge in industrial production technology and organization, leading to dramatic increases in profits for many captains of industry (PBS, 2018). Such technology included transportation innovations like steam engines and railroads, as well as new modes of management and production such as vertical integration (PBS, 2018). These advancements led to massive increases in the productivity and profits made by business owners, who used mechanization to push man and machine to put out greater amounts of product. In response to this spike in profits and increasing mechanization of industry, there was a push by steelworkers, miners, factory workers, and other laborers to secure better worker rights, pay, and democratization of their workplace. The push for such concessions led directly to the creation of unions across different industries in the U.S., most of which were opposed by big business owners of the time. While workers unionized in order to secure concessions, big business owners of the time fought to protect what they saw as the right to control their private property and extract the value of their investment. The direct conflict of interests between workers seeking rights and protections in the workplace and business owners trying to maintain control of their investments resulted in clashes between nascent unions and corporate forces, often aided by the state (PBS, 2018).
During this early period of conflict, anti-union corporations adopted many of the same tactics that are used today to break unions and block the power of organized labor. Union busters would leverage both managerial corporate power and state forces to dissuade, obstruct, and break union activity. These tactics would often take both overt and covert forms. On one hand, corporations would outright fire known or suspected unionizers, hire private security to violently confront direct union action, surveil workers for union activity, whip up anti-communist fervor against organized labor, and enlist workers suffering from unemployment to break picket lines (Moberg, 2005). For example, other corporations employed a more subtle approach, granting higher pay and other concessions to disgruntled workers without the need for a union to negotiate on behalf of company labor (Moberg, 2005). In the later years of the 20th century, companies also began outsourcing labor to regions or countries with relaxed labor regulations, circumventing the need to negotiate or concede with unions (Moberg, 2005). Examples include companies exporting work to the Sunbelt region of the U.S. and foreign countries such as Haiti and South Africa (National Museum of American History, 2019).
Despite the best efforts of corporations to stop union activity at their start, conflicts between labor and management interests would sometimes erupt into violence. Though there are cases where it was reported that striking miners initiated conflict between state or corporate forces during strikes, the outcome of these clashes more often than not included a higher civilian and union casualty rate (PBS, 2018). Documented instances of violence include the Ludlow Massacre of 1914 where the Colorado National Guard and security from the Colorado Fuel and Iron Company launch a raid on strikers, killing 20 civilians, the Memorial Day Massacre of 1937 where Chicago PD fire on and kill 10 striking picketers, and the Lattimer Massacre of 1897 where the county sheriff fires on 300 striking miners in support of the United Mine Workers of America (PBS, 2018). In most cases, organized labor had to contend with better-armed hired security such as the Pinkerton Detectives and police forces on the picket lines.
These examples of police and corporate security clashing with organized labor also reflect the tendency of the state to administer resources to corporations to stop union activity, though there are examples of union-friendly policies from the government in later years after pressure from labor organizations. Such pressure resulted in the creation of the U.S. Department of Labor, the creation of the 8-hour workday, and the creation of public education for children through the push of such organizations as the AFL-CIO (American Federationist, 1981). Other concessions that were passed into public policy at the federal level include welfare, health insurance, and holidays (American Federationist, 1981). However, these features of society were only implemented after pressure, protests, and strikes by organized labor and the working populace.
Today’s anti-labor tactics have remained relatively unchanged, yet they have had a marked effect on the landscape of organized labor today. Since the 80s, union membership has been almost halved in the U.S. — compared to 20% of U.S. workers being unionized in 1983, only 10.3% of workers were unionized in 2021 (Getchell, 2022). Critics of unions cite aggressive union dues, perceived lack of effect on work conditions, and the divisive relationship between union and non-union workers as reasons for the decline of unions in the U.S. (Getchell, 2022). However, studies conducted by the Economic Policy Institute in 2019 provide an alternative story, with U.S. employers charged with interference in union elections and violating federal labor laws in 41.5% of all union elections overseen by the National Labor Relations Board from 2016-2017 (McNicholas et. Al, 2019). According to the study, employers defaulted to firing union organizers in 20% of all elections and threatened workers sympathetic to unionization in another 29.6% of elections (McNicholas et. Al, 2019). These actions are directly illegal under current labor protection laws such as the National Labor Relations Act, as they are direct interferences with workers seeking to unionize and organize. It is noteworthy that these figures constitute only those elections that were overseen by the NLRB from a limited time span, and that the employers that were a part of this sample data had to have been formally charged in order to qualify for the study. In light of data that portrays a managerial culture in the U.S. which in many cases is hostile to organized labor, it can be seen from the corporate opposition to the Amazon Labor Union and the increasing unionization of Starbucks that there is a precedent for the unfair treatment of organized labor which persists to this day.
The cases of both the Amazon Labor Union and Starbucks Workers United illustrate a continued history of legal and illegal anti-union activity. In the case of Amazon, surveillance, coercion, and retaliation against agitating workers goes back to its inception in the 90s. The techniques that Amazon practices to break up unions ranges from conventional to unconventional. From sending emails threatening termination for suspected unionizers, mandatory anti-union meetings, terminating employees who strive for unionization, and even a push for maximum green light times for a traffic stop outside of a warehouse parking lot to minimize the exposure workers have to union recruiters, Amazon has historically discouraged and blocked efforts to unionize its workplace (Streitfeld, 2021). In the face of record profits for upper management and record injury rates in Amazon warehouses, the company still seeks to oppose further unionization using these union-busting techniques despite the creation of the Amazon Labor Union (Getchell, 2022). Starbucks Workers United has had to contend with less extreme tactics, but the strategy and goal has remained the same — workers are terminated not explicitly for unionizing but for seemingly unrelated performance issues, schedules are shifted to be impossible for union-sympathetic workers, captive audience meetings are held, and in one instance disability accommodations are ignored (Ganun, 2022). In 2022, an independent NLRB investigation uncovered more than 200 illegal union-busting activities from Starbucks (Logan, 2022). These corporate tactics are reflective of the long history of tense relations between labor striving to unionize, and corporate interests seeking to maintain their control over their labor force.
The history of the labor-corporate relationship is one fraught with conflict and power inequality which continues today. Through analysis of this relationship in regards to both historical and contemporary examples, it can be surmised that corporations have historically used several legal and illegal methods to attempt to break labor power to preserve control over private property, a practice that sees present-day deployment in even some of the largest and most public corporations in the U.S. today.
Work Cited
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McNicholas, C., Poydock, M., Wolfe, J., Zipperer, B., Lafer, G., & Loustaunau, L. (2019, December 11). Unlawful: U.S. employers are charged with violating federal law in 41.5% of all union election campaigns. Economic Policy Institute. Retrieved July 14, 2022, from https://www.epi.org/publication/unlawful-employer-opposition-to-union-election-campaigns/
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